Establishing a team in New York has been an eye-opening experience in comparative hiring cultures for Manchester-based design recruitment agency Craft. Here, Tommy Castleman, Associate Director at Craft, shares insights and best practices from design leaders over the pond.
Maybe you’re a studio head thinking of setting up shop in New York; perhaps you’re a designer, strategist or client services professional hoping to relocate. Either way, you’ll need to know how hiring culture differs over the pond.
No one market gets everything right, so in the spirit of sharing, here’s what distinct and inspiring about design recruitment in New York.
Generosity of spirit
The most populous city in America, New York is famously the global hub of hustle. Despite this, or maybe because of it, the design world here is a tight-knit community. Networking isn’t just a means to an end.
It has intrinsic value and is perceived as a pleasure and a future investment. People give referrals openly with no expectation attached. It’s indicative of a wider generosity of spirit, including enthusiasm to meet over coffee rather than over Zoom.
This extends to the sharing of expertise and thought leadership, where leaders are more accessible and present. Wherever you are in the world, junior and midweight designers will look up to the big shooters at successful studios, and New York is no different. What stands out is the narrative from heads of major agencies like Pentagram.
When new designs are released, it’s common practice for studio owners and creative directors to openly discuss each other’s work, sharing feedback with no overt self-promotion. Humility, presence, and openness abound.
The city that never sleeps
New Yorkers like to move; their energy is infectious, inspiring, and it’s reflected in design culture. People go where the coolest work is. With the market short on candidates, studios need to stand out to win talent: one has its own in-house screen-printing studio, a compelling offer to any design nerd’s inner geek.
Designers generally move more fluidly between freelance and permanent jobs – it’s not unusual to spend half the year freelancing and the other half in a permanent role. Temp or project-based-to-perm hiring is common practice that avoids any potential risk associated with permanent hiring, and serves as a valuable trial period for both sides.
Movement between in-house and agency-side is also freer flowing in New York. In the UK, you don’t tend to see Ragged Edge designers going to Monzo for a year – the journey is typically more linear.
And from a logistics point of view, candidates are generally open to a commute and will happily jump on the subway for the right role. Queens residents will apply to work at Brooklyn agencies, no questions asked.
Top table inclusion
Agency leaders are keenly involved in hiring and generous with their face time. It’s not unusual, for the owner or managing director to be in initial recruitment brief conversation…they may even pitch their deck. Creative directors take the time to run through recruitment briefs, instilling a strong sense of who would suit the role and why.
Generosity and presence extends to the interviewing process. Studio leaders are open to meeting more candidates; if they’re not right for this role, they might be perfect be a future opening. With willingness to network and build connections key, everyone brings their A-game everywhere – a seemingly casual coffee can open important doors.
In the city where more is, well, more – we see more overall interview stages (typically four) and more interviews at each stage. That’s a lot of “more”, but this isn’t a case of quantity over quality. It feeds into a desire to ensure cultural fit is spot in. A robust, lengthy interview process guarantees no bad apples in the cart, and a hire is only made when everyone is 100% in agreement that the person is exactly right for it.
And that works both ways. At Craft, we haven’t had a single negative interview experience relayed back to us by a candidate, including those that didn’t get through. In a community where everyone talks to everybody, agencies make sure to present their studio brand well and offer a positive experience.
A two-way street
Across all New York hires we’ve made to date, we haven’t seen one interview task – and that goes for junior hires. This comes down to robust, iterative hiring processes that assess and value candidates’ own presentation of their skills, largely through conversations.
At stage one, creative candidates generally run through their portfolio and should be confident presenting the work. For client services roles, they’ll be asked for examples of when they dealt with difficult clients, brought in new business, changed internal processes to maximise results and the like.
Employers will have already asked the right questions to eradicate any doubts by the next stage. An in-studio experience is important to both sides. Candidates want to talk to potential colleagues to get a genuine flavour of agency culture.
Embracing diversity
It’s tough to narrow down the New York agencies making strides in diversity. Thought Matter specialises in design for positive change: see their work for an NFT organization focused on women.
In terms of recruitment strategy, the same agency has run long-term initiatives to help level the playing field in the design community, including offering internships to underprivileged communities to introduce design as a realistic career option.
And female-led design is smashing it, with particularly exciting aesthetic graphic design work coming out of &Walsh (founded by Jessica Walsh, previously of Sagmeister & Walsh).
All this to say, there’s a reason that retention here is good, despite a financially volatile market. New York is brimming with brand design talent and opportunities to make stellar work.
Design will always be a proudly British export to the U.S. and when we share best practices across regions, we raise our brilliant industry’s game on both sides of the Atlantic.
